Meet Mr Lucifer (1953)

 

Stanley Holloway as  the Devil and ...

... as an actor playing the Devil!

Meet Mr Lucifer must be one the strangest films ever to come out of Ealing Studios and, not only that, it is also one of the most underrated. It has somehow earned a dreadful reputation and yet it is both funny and fun. No one is going to label it as one of the great Ealing Comedies, but it is far superior to some of the fare produced by the studio in the 1950s. Currently available on Volume 9 of Network DVD's The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection, it is worth watching just so that you can make up your own mind about its worth.

 

It tells the story of a failing pantomime star, played by Stanley Holloway, whose performances are playing to empty theatres:

 

 

The source of this downturn in audience numbers? Television.

 

After an accident knocks him unconscious, he dreams of meeting the Devil who sends him out to ruin people's lives as a reward for their addiction to watching television. The message certainly isn't subtle, but even more than sixty years on the film's observations on the impact of TV haven't dated.

 

Stanley Holloway's character (who doesn't actually seem particularly interested in doing anything to save theatre) ...

 

... is disparaging about television, describing it as an example of mass hallucination - although it might have been more accurate for him to describe it as mass hypnotism. Among those hypnotised by the arrival of television include a young married couple (played by Peggy Cummins and Jack Watling) whose relationship is spoiled by the amount of time spent staring at the screen:

Peggy Cummins & Jack Watling

Jack Watling

Peggy Cummins

Then there's the staid chemist, played by Gordon Jackson ...

Gordon Jackson

... whose life is turned upside down ...

 

... when he falls in love with TV's 'Lonely Hearts' singer, played by Kay Kendall:

 

Her act is an example of the blatant manipulation of vulnerable and lonely male members of the audience who truly believe she is singing directly to them, rather than just being part of an act. Unlike theatre or cinema, where the audience member knows the message is going out to everybody, the television message targets the solitary viewer. It's a precursor for all those online adverts that convince lonely western men that they could find love with gorgeous Russian 'models'. The film's moral stance is also a direct attack on commercialism and the blatant use of a layer of false emotion to present goods to an audience.

 

And what does the early TV show? There are no surprises for the modern audience. When Joseph Tomelty takes possession of a television, the first thing he sees is football ...

 

... closely followed by dancing ...

 

... cookery shows ...

 

... and science programmes with the power to enthral the audience without any of them understanding a word of it:

So what's changed? Nothing. We still sit around these boxes that bring the world into our living rooms and yet all too often offer us little but a view on the mundane.

 

The film's cast is immense, including:

 

Barbara Murray

Dandy Nicholls & Ernest Thesiger

Edie Martin



Gladys Henson (centre)

 

Raymond Huntley (centre) and Roddy Hughes (right)

Irene Handl

Jean Cadell

John Boxer

Joan Sims

Olive Sloane

Ian Carmichael as 'Man Friday' in the pantomime 'Robinson Crusoe'.

 

1950s TV personality Gilbert Harding appears as himself, with Joseph Tomelty watching his performance. Harding and Tomelty had previous played opposite each other in Ealing's The Gentle Gunman.

Trivia: when Holloway appears as the Devil (rather than the stage devil), his voice is dubbed by actor Geoffrey Keen.

This poster is currently available from the highly recommended website Rare Film Posters:

 

 

One final point: It's worth noting that Stanley Holloway appears in an outfit that appears almost identical to that he wore a few years later in The Titfield Thunderbolt: tweed jacket and soft tweed hat, bow tie and smoking through a cigarette holder:

Stanley Holloway

The Titfield Thunderbolt

 

The Titfield Thunderbolt

A Honeymoon Adventure (1931)

 

Peter Hannen & Benita Hume

 

Oh dear. Where do I start? This is really not very good. The story of a honeymooning couple Peter and Eve Martin (Peter Hannen and Benita Hume) who trip to the highlands of Scotland is interrupted by a pair of dodgy industrial spies (played by Harold Huth and Walter Armitage) ...

Harold Huth

Walter Armitage

... who are intent on stealing the plans for a prototype electrical process recently invented by Peter Martin. What should turn into an exciting romp along the roads and railways of the UK, soon turns into a dull series of mishaps in which Eve Martin constantly fails to take advantage of the situation and actually get the criminals arrested. Time after time the opportunity to foil their plans is presented to her, yet each time she makes the wrong move.

Benita Hume

 

It's almost as if the writers wanted us to consider to be a silly posh girl, but then you realise that she is actually being presented as self confident and resourceful, rather than just as a damsel in distress.

Benita Hume

 

She may be confident and resourceful but, sorry, she's also rather stupid. That said, she does look rather good slinking through the shadows in a silk nightdress:

 

The character of Peter Martin is moderately interesting - not in what he is in this film but as part of the overall depiction of engineers in literature and cinema during this period.

Peter Hannen

The mid-20th century was the age of the engineer: when engineers were seen as being at the forefront of modern society, the men who were forging ahead and making the world a better place (see Unlikely Heroes: The Engineer in British Cinema). As such, they were presented as hero figures on page and screen. With its setting in the Scottish Highlands, it easy to see the influence of John Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps on this film: both have an engineer caught up in a web of intrigue at the heart of the story. Then there are the novels of Eric Ambler, which again see innocent engineers caught up with the machinations of foreign agents trying to secure military/industrial secrets. The depiction of similar figures in cinema has the engineer as a forward thinking young man, usually dressed at the height of fashion. One of the most interesting sequences of the entire film fits into the theme of engineering and the forging ahead of industry: The film opens with a montage of engines, appearing more in keeping with a piece of Soviet propaganda cinema than a spy-romp through the Highlands.

 

 

Despite giving us an early example of the engineer-as-hero, the film fails to offer anything truly original. Available on Volume 9 of Network DVD's The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection, it wouldn't be a film that I could really recommend to anyone apart from completists or those fascinated by the depiction of engineers on-screen (if there is anyone else out there who finds it interesting?). That said, the box set does include Cheer Boys Cheer (which sees the pairing of Will Hay's legendary sidekicks Graham Moffat and Moore Marriott) and includes the under-rated Meet Mr Lucifer so it is worth the 'ticket price':

P.S. it's the first screen appearance of the actor Jack Lambert:

 

 



Cage of Gold (1950)

 

Jean Simmons & David Farrar

James Donald & David Farrar

 

Released in 1950, Cage of Gold is a classic post-war British drama that reflects both the impact of war on individuals and upon society as a whole. As regular readers of this blog will already be aware, your authors are great believers in the argument that British cinema's best commentary on World War 2 comes, not from war films per se, but from dramas such a this. Currently available on Volume 3 of The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection ...

... Cage of Gold shares space with Frieda, another film dealing with the aftermath of war. Both are among Ealing Studios' finest films and well-worth watching. Yet the similarities do not end there: both star David Farrar as a former RAF officer struggling to overcome the personal impact of war.

David Farrar

In Frieda, his character is an introvert, a man who finds himself an outsider within his own world. Yet in Cage of Gold, he is an extrovert, a man whose struggle to settle down post-war - into a world that no longer needs so many dashing, devil-may-care, young pilots - expresses itself in a continued search for risk and excitement which drags him into a world of crime and danger.

 

The story follows Judith Moray (Jean Simmons) ...

Jean Simmons

... a young woman who is reunited with her first love, Wing Commander Bill Glennan (David Farrar), who had been a regular visitor to her parent's home when he was stationed nearby during wartime. Despite knowing all too well that Glennan is unreliable, she is drawn back into his world ...

Jean Simmons & David Farrar

Jean Simmons and David Farrar

 

... falls pregnant and marries him, only to see him run away as soon as he discovers her family have no money to lend him.

 

By falling back in love with Glennan, Judith betrays her boyfriend Alan Kearn (James Donald) a steady, reliable, young doctor just starting out on his career.

James Donald

We know that he is steady - and possibly a little dull - since, in contrast to Bill Glennan, Dr Kearns wears a cardigan with his suit ...

James Donald

... rather than dressing for dinner, or constantly smoking and drinking, like his love rival:

David Farrar

David Farrar

This situation might easily have left us with a standard love-triangle between the beautiful young woman, the exciting war hero and the dull doctor. However, in the hands of producers Michael Balcon and Michael Relph, and directed by Relph's regular partner Basil Dearden, the film takes on a crusading role.

 

Dr Kearns and Wing Commander Glennan are not simply the love interests for the leading lady, instead they represent essential facets of post-war Britain, struggling - not for the heart of the lady - but for the support of society itself:

James Donald and David Farrar

 

Dr Kearns is a man facing a choice between working in an exclusive private clinic or in general practice in the newly formed National Health Service. In choosing the NHS he aligns himself with modernity, with the future of the not only the nation's health, but with its overall wellbeing. He sacrifices greater financial reward for the sense of community he can find treating the ordinary people of South London. That he not only represents political advancement, but also represents changing social attitudes, is shown by his acceptance of bringing up another man's child as his own.

 

At the heart of the film is this clash of cultures: stability versus excitement, building for the future versus living for the moment. Whilst Dr Kearns represents the bright new future, Glennan represents the past: he is stuck in a hopeless cycle of indulgence and a quest for the excitement of the old-days, when just surviving to fight another day was a bonus. His world of nightclubs, airshows, horse racing and nights out at the theatre is glamorous but ultimately unsustainable. Like war, it eventually devours all who choose that life.

 

Glennan is living in the past, unable to let go of the heady days of bombing missions and endless parties. When Judith paints his portrait he insists on being depicted in his uniform, as if that was the only part of his life that really mattered:

James Donald & Jean Simmons

And just like his wartime life, his post-war world is destructive: rather than bombing cities, he plays with women and exploits them, doing anything he can to fund the life he feels he needs to live:

Farrar & Maria Mauban

Although the film's publicity depicted Simmons within a cage, the title actually refers to another of Glennan's loves, Marie Jouvet, a French nightclub singer who is obsessed with him and who will do anything not to lose him:

Madeleine Lebeau in the gilded cage of the title

 

The film also offers us the unlikely sight of Herbert Lom as a sympathetic villain. Yes he's a criminal, as is shown by his choice of super-wide lapels, bold striped shirts and bow ties ...

Herbert Lom

Herbert Lom

... but he is also a victim in that he is rejected by Jouvet since she cannot abandon her love for Glennan.

 

As a stand-alone film, Cage of Gold competes with the very best of the output of Ealing Studios during this period, but as a companion piece to Frieda it provides an essential platform for building an understanding of post-war Britain.

  

Here's who else appears:

 

Bernard Lee:

 

Gladys Henson:

 

Harcourt Williams:

 

 

And, inevitably, Sam Kydd:

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn Crocus (1934)

 

Ivor Novello & Fay Compton

When I sat down to watch this film I recall that I uttered the words 'Oh no, 80 minutes on Ivor Novello in a Tyrolean Inn'. Now, having watched it I feel slightly differently about the film: 'Hmm, 80 minutes of Ivor Novello in a Tyrolean Inn. Oh well, at least I witnessed Jack Hawkins wearing lederhosen'.

 

Diana Beaumont and Jack Hawkins

 

This is one of those early offering from Network DVD's 'Ealing Rarities' series, covering the period when Ealing Studios was simply a physical location rather than a brand. When, under the guiding hand of Basil Dean, the studios was home to Associated Talking Pictures.

 

Autumn Crocus was based on a long-running stage play by Dodie Smith (author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians) which had been produced by Basil Dean. As noted in Network DVD's publicity for the DVD release, it was "a kind of forerunner to 'Shirley Valentine' as the story of an Englishwoman finding holiday romance in Europe." That's as may be, but I didn't like Shirley Valentine and certainly struggled to find anything of interest here either.

 

My immediate hurdle was that, for the modern viewer, Ivor Novello is very difficult to believe as a romantic lead. He may not have been viewed as camp by audiences in 1934 but, in 2015, he really isn't convincing as an Austrian hotelier who falls in love with a British schoolteacher on holiday (Fay Compton).

Ivor Novello

Fay Compton

 

The choice of Compton was a good one, she is the right age to be convincing as a sexually and romantically frustrated schoolteacher who realises that she missed the opportunity to fall in love. That she lives and works with another woman who appears to be somewhat butch (Esme Church), can hardly be helping her chances:

Esme Church, Ivor Novello and Fay Compton.

 

Far more interesting is the subplot concerning young unmarried British couple (Diana Beaumont and Jack Hawkins) who are staying in Novello's hotel. They are unconventional, something we realise as soon as we see the clothes Hawkins wears: belted Tweed jacket and lederhosen:

Diana Beaumont and Jack Hawkins

 

Their unmarried status is revealed in Beaumont's words about a fellow guest who openly disapproves of their behaviour: "She makes me feel like a chorus girl instead of a respectable woman living in freedom."

 

The unconventional lifestyle is compounded when we see them together in the room one morning whilst Beaumont is still getting dressed:

Diana Beaumont and Jack Hawkins

This subplot provides a gently comic atmosphere that contrasts with the main storyline. Hawking and Beaumont are pitted against George Zucco and Muriel Aked as a British vicar and his spinster sister.

George Zucco

Muriel Aked

 

The banter between Zucco and Hawkins is lively, especially since Zucco admits he should be admonishing them for their lifestyle. However, he just can't seem to bring himself to do it, despite the open contempt his sister has for them. It's little wonder that Zucco feels this way after all, he's the type of man who combines shorts with tweed jacket, waistcoat and dog-collar and has an interseting choice of holiday reading, as Hawkins rightly points out: "vicars on holiday always read Edgar Wallace."

 

 

 

However, rather than allowing them more screen time, the audience is offered long scenes of Tyrolean scenery and village scenes. Yes, it's nicely shot by assistant director Carol Reed, but it's strictly travelog stuff. Throw in seemingly endless Austrian folk songs and you are even left waiting for Ivor Novello to return and camp it up again ... which of course he does.

 

Maybe if they'd left out the Austrian travelog material, given the comedy couples more screen times and reduced the running time to one hour it could have been good ... but they didn't!

 

You have been warned!